Wednesday, June 29, 2005


Japanese Monkey

These monkies come through my wife's family's estate regularly.

They have a group society of their own where everyone has a particular part to play. The "Old Man" usually sits out in the open attracting attention. The larger males also run about making tons of noise in the opposite direction from the females and their babies. The females and their babies usually track along the inside of forest lines on KEMONO NO MICHI (animal paths).

In the forest behind this house, there are monkey nests where they apparently rest out of site of humans.
Jii-chan's Kanji Flashcards

"This site allows direct review of the Kanji via the JavaScript powered flashcard feature."

For those of us studying Japanese, like my kids and my mother, this is a great resource.

Pass it on.
Sento - Japanese communal bath house:

"A Sento is a Japanese communal bath house. Typically these bath houses are quite utilitarian, with one large room separating the sexes by a tall barrier, a line of showers along one wall and a single large bath for the already washed bathers to sit in along the other. Since the 1980s these communal bath houses have been decreasing in numbers as more and more Japanese bathe at home, and some Japanese are concerned that without the skinship of mutual nakedness, children will not be properly socialized. A special form of the sento is an Onsen, which is a sento using water from a natural hot spring."
BetterUniverse.com - Home: "A Better Universe Membership saves you time and money while generating the funds needed to feed and care for the less fortunate around the world. Our unique focus is on entertainment, travel, and fun! Today?s technologies and years of industry experience have produced a superior business model for the 21st Century. Our benefits are designed to help you to have a better life, so that together we may help many lives. We are making a difference together!
"
Yahoo! Mail "Temporary problem accessing your mailbox.

We recommend clicking the 'Refresh' or 'Reload' button on your browser's toolbar. If this doesn't correct the problem, re-login to your account. If the problem persists, click here to send us a report.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience."

It appears that Yahoo! Mail is having trouble. Wonder if this is systemic or only related to my account or a small number of accounts.
eric_standlee's Yahoo! Profile: "eric_standlee's profile"

I updated my Yahoo Profile.
Personal Note:

Last Friday we drove down to Osaka from Tsuruga in Fukui Prefecture. It has been a year since I drove the route I took. I took the Hokkuriku Tollway to Yokaichi and exited, then essentially took 307 through Ninja territory and through the "Green Bypass" tollway. BTW, gas was 108 yen a liter at the General gas station just down the hill on the South side of the Green Bypass whereas in Tsuruga it is still 125 yen per liter. Anyway, this takes us through Minakuchi and Konan and Koga to National Highway 25. At this point 25 is freeway and we take this through the mountains on either side of Ueno then down into Tenri where it turns into a tollway. It was almost exactly 3 hours from Tsuruga to Tondabayashi.

In Tondabayashi, we stayed at our friends the Nishiguchi's house. On a side note, we had free time on Saturday and went to World Bokujou (World Ranch) and it was horrible. Saturday afternoon we ate lunch late at Keiko Yamanaka's house and then went to visit Wakayo's pastor's wife and youngest daughter. The daughter is now in college and really grown up. I have known her since she was 10 I believe.

We went to that pastor's church, Minami Osaka Evangelical Church (aka Christian Power Ministries, aka Revival Church International). Keven Tabuchi from Canada was preaching. I like him.

We ate dinner with Kevin and the pastor and his family and the youngest daughter's boyfriend!!! It was a good chinese restaurant in Tondabayashi.

Then we got in the car at around 7pm and drove back the 3 hours to Tsuruga so that the kids could get to school Monday morning.

Whew! What a busy weekend.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

tsuki 10 man en de yutakani kuraseru chou & son


This is one of the best programs on TV in Japan. It is about places in Japan where you can live for less than $1000 a month.

If you can read Japanese or figure out how to translate this it is very interesting info for rich or poor.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Trying Oracle on Linux in the Enterprise | Linux Journal:

"Linux wins on:

1.

Cost
2.

Cost of the OS
3.

Cost savings from the Intel servers vs. PA-RISC ones
4.

Dynamic kernel changes (no reboot)

HPUX wins on:

1.

Maturity and power of admin tools
2.

Maturity of RAID and fibre card drivers
3.

Repartitioning boot disk (no reboot)
4.

Server cloning software
5.

Easy crash-dumps and remote console access"
Linux Pipeline | Trends:

"... a funny thing happened on the way to doing business as usual. Last week, Microsoft told one-half of its installed base, as clearly and concisely as it could, that they would have to pay as much for IE 7 as they would have to pay for a full operating system upgrade -- since to get the former, they would have to buy the latter."
Google Search::

"The physical examination of small celestial bodies such as comets and asteroids, heralded as a new frontier in space exploration, begins with a bang, literally ... "

InformationWeek > Security > IE, Firefox SpoofableAgain > June 21, 2005:

"Not only does the vulnerability exist in up-to-date editions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Mozilla, Camino, Opera, and Safari, but it also affects the not-yet-released Firefox 1.0.5, which is in the last stages of testing."
Secunia - Multiple Browsers Dialog Origin Vulnerability Test

More of a proof of concept that all browsers are vulnerable to this sort of malicious attack, this site will "test" your browser.

Since all browsers are affected, this is proof that the initial www concept was too trusting.
ANTs Data Server Supports 64-Bit Linux on Opteron | Technology News Daily:

"ANTs software, inc. today announced version 3.2 of the ANTs Data Server (ADS), the only lock-free relational database management system architected for the next generation of trading applications running on Linux. Supporting popular 64-bit Linux operating system implementations running on low-cost AMD Opteron platforms, ADS 3.2 sets a new price-performance benchmark, allowing very large OLTP and real-time analytical processing and reporting in main memory."

[It is capable of] delivering extraordinary database performance in high volume, update-intensive transactional systems. A full-featured SQL RDBMS, the ANTs Data Server is designed to operate as a standalone database.
Nokia shifting to Linux as it joins with Apple to challenge Windows 2 | The Register:

"it raises interesting questions about how much further Nokia and Apple could go in cooperating on the anti- Microsoft ecosystem, and how far Nokia is committing its future to Linux."
NewsFromRussia.Com Situation with solar sail spacecraft remains unclear:

"There is no information to confirm or deny that the spacecraft successfully separated from the booster rocket. It could take up several hours to establish the exact situation, reports Associated Press, citing a spokeswoman for the Lavochkin institute involved in the project. "
Wakasa-cho / Mikata Onsen Kirara no yu



I went to this public bath yesterday with our friends Keiichi and Mino. I came back refreshed and well relaxed.

For some reason, Onsen or Sento, hot springs or public baths, encourage vision casting whenever I go. Yesterday was no different. We sat and talked about the things we could do in Houston when we get back and about my wife's parents and about just about anything.

The baths are on the second floor of this old-style new building built this year by the Wakasa Town's people. It was 600 yen (about $6.50) to enter. We entered and like in just about any Japanese building we took our shoes off at the door and put them into a Getabako or shoe box. Then we took the key to our shoe box and gave it to the front desk with our 600 yen ticket we bought from a ticket vending machine and received a key to a clothes locker upstairs in the changing room.

The shower area was just in the door from the changing room, and as soon as we shampooed and soaped and washed off, then we got in the first bath. It was very hot, so I quickly tried others. Finaly we went outside and the bath temperature was just right.

If you are ever in the Wakasa Town area, I recommend this bath house. It was a pleasure to sit and relax and talk story with friends there.

[RC:3944042a]
NASA - Encounter Animation

DEEP IMPACT mission to impact the comet July 3-4.

Monday, June 20, 2005

Google Search: Solar Sail Stories on Google News
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Solar sail gets ready for launch
CTV.ca | Solar-powered spacecraft prepared to 'set sail':

"Not only does the project represent a potential breakthrough in space travel, it is also a demonstration of the growing role of private enterprise in developing such technology.

Privately funded by the Planetary Society -- a leading non-profit, non-governmental space advocacy group co-founded by the late astronomer Carl Sagan -- Cosmos 1 was developed with a budget of only $4 million US."
CoolTechZone::Private solar sail orbiter gets ready for launch

Very cool technology. I believe that the private sector should drive space exploration as long as private companies don't begin to act as pirates on the open seas of space. Government should step down from space exploration as it wastes resources in the effort and should relegate its usefulness to the policing of space exploration to avoid piracy.

IMHO
Linux solves Bergen schools' IT | Linux

Since publicly trade companies fear the legal trickeries of SCO like attacks, it appears that public schools and government agencies will be the news of the day for Linux.

The fact of the matter is that when Microsoft bigots stop lying in the press and acting more like the adults that they claim they are then we can have honest discussions about how Linux and Microsoft and all the other players in the software market can work together.
Japan agrees to consider building alternative to Yasukuni Shrine

This response by the Japanese is in my humble opinion a very adult response. I believe that we can all learn from the lesson that honesty is the best policy. Our children should be taught this lesson by all the things we adults do and say.
MercuryNews.com | 06/20/2005 | Okinawa fears truth buried

It is amazing how war can warp the truth even many years later. What really happened is a shameful thing and thus some would just as soon forget it. But, the truth came out in the end.

I think more than forgetting the shameful past, it is time that we all act like adults and admit when wrong is done and as for forgiveness. Instead of teaching our kids to lookout only for our own welfare, we should be teaching them the power of generousity in forgiveness and generousity in love to our fellow humans.

This is a lesson that we can learn today alongside the people of Japan.

Friday, June 17, 2005

PC Pro: News: French Linux builder acquires Lycoris
Mandriva has been my distro of choice since 1998 when I stumbled upon it. I have watched them struggle from total annonymity through club membership introduction when emphasis on corporate products dropped off the radar for while until now when Mandriva has garnered recognition for desktop linux prowess.

Now that Mandriva has a US VP of Sales, Walt Pennington, support is stronger than it ever has been.

Mandriva still makes more than 50% of their income from large scale professional services on CRM, ERP and VoIP projects.

Mandriva's partner program has been a large boom for its partners as late, of which we are one. Walt Pennington is doing his best to encourage open cooperation between partners and increased sales to small and medium sized clients.

Their service agreement is with partner Ruffdogs.com which shoes much promise for corporate clients and partners as well. Ruffdogs' depth in linux expertise has come through for our company as well.

The future for Manriva appears very bright.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Friday, June 10, 2005

Monday, June 06, 2005

Want to follow my meanderings around the internet? I use the "StumbleUpon" extension in Mozilla Firefox to comment on the sites I like (notice some blatent self-promotion).
(Japan, Mihama, Fukui-Prefecture) Odd breaking news
At approximately 3:50 pm JST, two cargo aircraft appearing to be military use flew directly over Mihama village in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. According to locals, there is a small airfield north of Fukui City called Komatsu which could have been the origin of these aircraft. The two large four engine propeller aircraft flew two orbits over the area whose epoch appeared to be downtown Tsuruga City, Fukui Prefecture.

The lead aircraft was olive drab and appeared to have JASDF markings. The second aircraft flew inline behind the first and appeared to be older than the first. This second aircraft was sky blue and appeared to lack any significant markings.

They were first noticed after it appears that they had come South along the coast and banked hard inland for the return leg of their initial orbit. They were last seen on a slightly more easterly heading on the South side of Tsuruga City around the same place as their initial return leg.

After these aircraft disappeared over the horizon of the Sata mountains, a white four engine jet aircraft appeared to come from the same origin as these two aircraft at a high rate of climb and speed heading NNW in what appeared to be a heading to take it toward the Korean Penninsula.